beamom
Lairian
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2012
- Messages
- 281
- Points
- 66
Sorry - this is long.
Some of you have read about Bea's diarrhea issues. Well, she is a mystery and though I don't want to jinx anything, it looks like she is better and I'm not sure why. I adopted 11 yr old Bea in on July 1st with chronic diarrhea that she's apparently had for a long time, I think for years. It seems she'd been fed dry 'junk food' (my vet's words) by her prior owner. She was brought to my vet to be put to sleep and the vet said she may have someone to adopt her and asked me if I'd be interested. She thought the diarrhea was due to stress from Bea's home environment. I met Bea and fell for her.
The vet had me feeding her W/D and I/D, that didn't help, so I transitioned her to grain-free canned food, that didn't help much. After eating some grain-free dry food she had diarrhea 3 times within an hour so that got put away. The vet has had me try so many meds and things to add to her food - flagyl, prednisolone, tylan, fortiflora probiotic, digestive enzymes, clay, pumpkin. Nothing cured it. Sometimes it was a little better, but at most soft stool but mostly mudpies and sometimes liquid. Half the time she didn't go in the box, but next to it.
3 weeks ago she pretty much stopped eating. I tried different things, even put food in her mouth, having to hold her front legs so she wouldn't scratch me while doing so. I didn't want to be mean, but I needed to get food in her. She obviously wasn't feeling well, and we went to the vet, but no idea what was going on. She'd lost 1 lb. She got fluids, a B-12 shot and pepcid at the vet. I weaned her off the antibiotics and prednisolone and started adding a little pumpkin to her food. That helped a little bit, but not as much as I'd hoped. After a couple of days she was feeling better and eating again. Then this past weekend the same thing, not feeling well and not wanting to eat. I tried raw food, she ate it once, then didn't want it again. She wouldn't eat much of anything again, so I bought the tuna flavors of canned food so she would eat and she liked those, but still didn't eat quite as much as normal. I can tell she's lost more weight, so I'm giving her a little of one of those goopy high calorie things to help her gain it back. This time nothing came out of her back end for 3 days. So I got out that dry food that gave her liquid diarrhea thinking it would get things moving. It may have, she did her first real poop! What a beautiful sight! I wasn't bothering much about what I'd been adding to her food - fortiflora, digestive enzymes and pumpkin, I didn't want to taint the flavor of the food as she just needed to eat. And I put out some of that dry food again as an experiment. No diarrhea. She had a soft poop, and tonight another normal one! And only once a day.
So, she's getting grain-free canned food and grain-free dry food for overnight and not having diarrhea. Why when that didn't help before? I don't care, I'm just happy. And she's doing it in the litter box. She's just starting to feel better again. I don't know what these 2 episodes were about. We're going to the vet this weekend - my vet is working this weekend and said I could bring her in to weigh her and look her over - she is great, having me come after hours to save me the money of a regular visit. I'm worried about what her weight will be, but if she can stay as she is now, she'll gain it back eventually. I'm putting off trying the raw food again for now, to see if she will be stable for a while on the grain-free food.
Wish us luck!
Some of you have read about Bea's diarrhea issues. Well, she is a mystery and though I don't want to jinx anything, it looks like she is better and I'm not sure why. I adopted 11 yr old Bea in on July 1st with chronic diarrhea that she's apparently had for a long time, I think for years. It seems she'd been fed dry 'junk food' (my vet's words) by her prior owner. She was brought to my vet to be put to sleep and the vet said she may have someone to adopt her and asked me if I'd be interested. She thought the diarrhea was due to stress from Bea's home environment. I met Bea and fell for her.
The vet had me feeding her W/D and I/D, that didn't help, so I transitioned her to grain-free canned food, that didn't help much. After eating some grain-free dry food she had diarrhea 3 times within an hour so that got put away. The vet has had me try so many meds and things to add to her food - flagyl, prednisolone, tylan, fortiflora probiotic, digestive enzymes, clay, pumpkin. Nothing cured it. Sometimes it was a little better, but at most soft stool but mostly mudpies and sometimes liquid. Half the time she didn't go in the box, but next to it.
3 weeks ago she pretty much stopped eating. I tried different things, even put food in her mouth, having to hold her front legs so she wouldn't scratch me while doing so. I didn't want to be mean, but I needed to get food in her. She obviously wasn't feeling well, and we went to the vet, but no idea what was going on. She'd lost 1 lb. She got fluids, a B-12 shot and pepcid at the vet. I weaned her off the antibiotics and prednisolone and started adding a little pumpkin to her food. That helped a little bit, but not as much as I'd hoped. After a couple of days she was feeling better and eating again. Then this past weekend the same thing, not feeling well and not wanting to eat. I tried raw food, she ate it once, then didn't want it again. She wouldn't eat much of anything again, so I bought the tuna flavors of canned food so she would eat and she liked those, but still didn't eat quite as much as normal. I can tell she's lost more weight, so I'm giving her a little of one of those goopy high calorie things to help her gain it back. This time nothing came out of her back end for 3 days. So I got out that dry food that gave her liquid diarrhea thinking it would get things moving. It may have, she did her first real poop! What a beautiful sight! I wasn't bothering much about what I'd been adding to her food - fortiflora, digestive enzymes and pumpkin, I didn't want to taint the flavor of the food as she just needed to eat. And I put out some of that dry food again as an experiment. No diarrhea. She had a soft poop, and tonight another normal one! And only once a day.
So, she's getting grain-free canned food and grain-free dry food for overnight and not having diarrhea. Why when that didn't help before? I don't care, I'm just happy. And she's doing it in the litter box. She's just starting to feel better again. I don't know what these 2 episodes were about. We're going to the vet this weekend - my vet is working this weekend and said I could bring her in to weigh her and look her over - she is great, having me come after hours to save me the money of a regular visit. I'm worried about what her weight will be, but if she can stay as she is now, she'll gain it back eventually. I'm putting off trying the raw food again for now, to see if she will be stable for a while on the grain-free food.
Wish us luck!
